Part 17

“Il amusa pendant deux mois le peuple de la ville de Nekhscheb, en faisant sortir toutes les nuits du fond d’un puits un corps lumineux semblable à la Lune, qui portoit sa lumière jusqu’à la distance de plusieurs milles.”—_D’Herbelot._ Hence he was called Sazendéhmah, or the Moon-maker.

Footnote 136:

p. 99.—_Had rested on the Ark._

The Shechinah, called Sakînat in the Koran.—See _Sale’s Note_, chap. ii.

Footnote 137:

p. 99.—_Of the small drum with which they count the night._

The parts of the night are made known as well by instruments of music, as by the rounds of the watchmen with cries and small drums.—See _Burder’s Oriental Customs_, vol. i. p. 119.

Footnote 138:

p. 99.—_On for the lamps, that light yon lofty screen._

The Serrapurda, high screens of red cloth, stiffened with cane, used to enclose a considerable space round the royal tents.—_Notes on the Bahardanush._

The tents of Princes were generally illuminated. Norden tells us that the tent of the Bey of Girge was distinguished from the other tents by forty lanterns being suspended before it.—See _Harmer’s Observations on Job_.

Footnote 139:

p. 100.—_Pour to the spot, like bees of_ KAUZEROON.

“From the groves of orange trees at Kauzeroon the bees cull a celebrated honey.”—_Morier_’s Travels.

Footnote 140:

p. 102.—_Of nuptial pomp, she sinks into his tide._

“A custom still subsisting at this day, seems to me to prove that the Egyptians formerly sacrificed a young virgin to the God of the Nile; for they now make a statue of earth in shape of a girl, to which they give the name of the Betrothed Bride, and throw it into the river.”—_Savary._

Footnote 141:

p. 103.—_Engines of havoc in, unknown before._

That they knew the secret of the Greek fire among the Mussulmans early in the eleventh century, appears from _Dow_’s Account of Mamood I. “When he arrived at Moultan, finding that the country of the Jits was defended by great rivers, he ordered fifteen hundred boats to be built, each of which he armed with six iron spikes, projecting from their prows and sides, to prevent their being boarded by the enemy, who were very expert in that kind of war. When he had launched this fleet, he ordered twenty archers into each boat, and five others with fire-balls, to burn the craft of the Jits, and naphtha to set the whole river on fire.”

The _agnee aster_, too, in Indian poems the Instrument of fire, whose flame cannot be extinguished, is supposed to signify the Greek Fire.—See _Wilks_’s South of India, vol. i. p. 471.—And in the curious Javan Poem, the _Brata Yudha_, given by _Sir Stamford Raffles_ in his History of Java, we find, “He aimed at the heart of Soéta with the sharp-pointed Weapon of Fire.”

The mention of gunpowder as in use among the Arabians, long before its supposed discovery in Europe, is introduced by _Ebn Fadhl_, the Egyptian geographer, who lived in the thirteenth century. “Bodies,” he says, “in the form of scorpions, bound round and filled with nitrous powder, glide along, making a gentle noise; then, exploding, they lighten, as it were, and burn. But there are others which, cast into the air, stretch along like a cloud, roaring horribly, as thunder roars, and on all sides vomiting out flames, burst, burn, and reduce to cinders whatever comes in their way.” The historian _Ben Abdalla_, in speaking of the sieges of Abulualid in the year of the Hegira 712, says, “A fiery globe, by means of combustible matter, with a mighty noise suddenly emitted, strikes with the force of lightning, and shakes the citadel.”—See the Extracts from _Casiri_’s Biblioth. Arab. Hispan. in the Appendix to _Berington_’s Literary History of the Middle Ages.

Footnote 142:

p. 103.—_And horrible as new;—javelins that fly._

The Greek fire, which was occasionally lent by the emperors to their allies. “It was,” says Gibbon, “either launched in red hot balls of stone and iron, or darted in arrows or javelins, twisted round with flax and tow, which had deeply imbibed the inflammable oil.”

Footnote 143:

p. 103.—_Discharge, as from a kindled Naphtha fount._

See _Hanway_’s Account of the Springs of Naphtha at Baku (which is called by _Lieutenant Pottinger_ Joala Mokee, or, the Flaming Mouth) taking fire and running into the sea. _Dr. Cooke_, in his Journal, mentions some wells in Circassia, strongly impregnated with this inflammable oil, from which issues boiling water. “Though the weather,” he adds, “was now very cold, the warmth of these wells of hot water produced near them the verdure and flowers of spring.”

_Major Scott Waring_ says, that naphtha is used by the Persians, as we are told it was in hell, for lamps.

... many a row Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed With naphtha and asphaltus, yielding light As from a sky.

Footnote 144:

p. 104.—_Like those wild birds that by the Magians oft._

“At the great festival of fire, called the Sheb Sezê, they used to set fire to large bunches of dry combustibles, fastened round wild beasts and birds, which being then let loose, the air and earth appeared one great illumination; and as these terrified creatures naturally fled to the woods for shelter, it is easy to conceive the conflagrations they produced.”—_Richardson_’s Dissertation.

Footnote 145:

p. 106.—_Keep, seal’d with precious musk, for those they love._

“The righteous shall be given to drink of pure wine, sealed; the seal whereof shall be musk.”—_Koran_, chap. lxxxiii.

Footnote 146:

p. 110.—_On its own brood;—no Demon of the Waste._

“The Afghauns believe each of the numerous solitudes and deserts of their country to be inhabited by a lonely demon, whom they call the Ghoolee Beeabau, or Spirit of the Waste. They often illustrate the wildness of any sequestered tribe, by saying, they are wild as the Demon of the Waste.”—_Elphinstone_’s Caubul.

Footnote 147:

p. 111.—_With burning drugs, for this last hour distill’d._

“Il donna du poison dans le vin à tous ses gens, et se jetta lui-même ensuite dans une cuve pleine de drogues brûlantes et consumantes, afin qu’il ne restât rien de tous les membres de son corps, et que ceux qui restoient de sa secte puissent croire qu’il étoit monté au ciel, ce qui ne manqua pas d’arriver.”—_D’Herbelot._

Footnote 148:

p. 113.—_In the lone Cities of the Silent dwell._

“They have all a great reverence for burial-grounds, which they sometimes call by the poetical name of Cities of the Silent, and which they people with the ghosts of the departed, who sit each at the head of his own grave, invisible to mortal eyes.”—_Elphinstone._

Footnote 149:

p. 120.—_And to eat any mangoes but those of Mazagong was, of course, impossible._—“The celebrity of Mazagong is owing to its mangoes, which are certainly the best fruit I ever tasted. The parent-tree, from which all those of this species have been grafted, is honoured during the fruit-season by a guard of sepoys; and, in the reign of Shah Jehan, couriers were stationed between Delhi and the Mahratta coast to secure an abundant and fresh supply of mangoes for the royal table.”—_Mrs. Graham_’s Journal of a Residence in India.

Footnote 150:

p. 120.—_Laden with his fine antique porcelain._—This old porcelain is found in digging, and “if it is esteemed, it is not because it has acquired any new degree of beauty in the earth, but because it has retained its ancient beauty; and this alone is of great importance in China, where they give large sums for the smallest vessels which were used under the Emperors Yan and Chun, who reigned many ages before the dynasty of Tang, at which time porcelain began to be used by the Emperors” (about the year 442).—_Dunn_’s Collection of curious Observations, &c.;—a bad translation of some parts of the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses of the Missionary Jesuits.

Footnote 151:

p. 122.—_And if Nasser, the Arabian merchant, told no better._—“La lecture de ces Fables plaisoit si fort aux Arabes, que, quand Mahomet les entretenoit de l’Histoire de l’Ancien Testament, ils les méprisoient, lui disant que celles que Nasser leur racontoit étoient beaucoup plus belles. Cette préférence attira à Nasser la malédiction de Mahomet et de tous ses disciples.”—_D’Herbelot._

Footnote 152:

p. 122.—_Like the blacksmith’s apron converted into a banner._—The blacksmith Gao, who successfully resisted the tyrant Zohak, and whose apron became the Royal Standard of Persia.

Footnote 153:

p. 125.—_That sublime bird, which flies always in the air, and never touches the earth._—“The Huma, a bird peculiar to the East. It is supposed to fly constantly in the air, and never touch the ground: it is looked upon as a bird of happy omen; and that every head it overshades will in time wear a crown.”—_Richardson._

In the terms of alliance made by Fuzzel Oola Khan with Hyder in 1760, one of the stipulations was, “that he should have the distinction of two honorary attendants standing behind him, holding fans composed of the feathers of the Humma, according to the practice of his family.”—_Wilk_’s South of India. He adds in a note:—“The Humma is a fabulous bird. The head over which its shadow once passes will assuredly be circled with a crown. The splendid little bird suspended over the throne of Tippoo Sultaun, found at Seringapatam in 1799, was intended to represent this poetical fancy.”

Footnote 154:

p. 125.—_Like those on the Written Mountain, last for ever._—“To the pilgrims to Mount Sinai we must attribute the inscriptions, figures, &c. on those rocks, which have from thence acquired the name of the Written Mountain.”—_Volney._ M. Gebelin and others have been at much pains to attach some mysterious and important meaning to these inscriptions; but Niebuhr, as well as Volney, thinks that they must have been executed at idle hours by the travellers to Mount Sinai, “who were satisfied with cutting the unpolished rock with any pointed instrument; adding to their names and the date of their journeys some rude figures which bespeak the hand of a people but little skilled in the arts.”—_Niebuhr._

Footnote 155:

p. 125.—_Like the old Man of the Sea, upon his back._—The Story of Sinbad.

Footnote 156:

p. 126.—_To which Hafez compares his mistress’s hair._—See _Nott_’s Hafez, Ode v.

Footnote 157:

p. 126.—_To the Cámalatá, by whose rosy blossoms the heaven of Indra is scented._—“The Cámalatá (called by Linnæus, Ipomæa) is the most beautiful of its order, both in the colour and form of its leaves and flowers; its elegant blossoms are ‘celestial rosy red, Love’s proper hue,’ and have justly procured it the name of Cámalatá, or Love’s Creeper.”—_Sir W. Jones._

“Cámalatá may also mean a mythological plant, by which all desires are granted to such as inhabit the heaven of Indra; and if ever flower was worthy of paradise, it is our charming Ipomæa”—_Sir W. Jones._

Footnote 158:

p. 126.—_That flower-loving Nymph whom they worship in the temples of Kathay._—“According to Father Premare, in his tract on Chinese Mythology, the mother of Fo-hi was the daughter of heaven, surnamed Flower-loving; and as the nymph was walking alone on the bank of a river, she found herself encircled by a rainbow, after which she became pregnant, and, at the end of twelve years, was delivered of a son radiant as herself.”—_Asiat. Res._

Footnote 159:

p. 130.—_With its plane-tree Isle reflected clear._

“Numerous small islands emerge from the Lake of Cashmere. One is called Char Chenaur, from the plane-trees upon it.”—_Foster._

Footnote 160:

p. 130.—_And the golden floods that thitherward stray._

“The Altan Kol or Golden River of Tibet, which runs into the Lakes of Sing-su-hay, has abundance of gold in its sands, which employs the inhabitants all the summer in gathering it.”—_Description of Tibet in Pinkerton._

Footnote 161:

p. 131.—_Blooms nowhere but in Paradise._

“The Brahmins of this province insist that the blue campac flowers only in Paradise.”—_Sir W. Jones._ It appears, however, from a curious letter of the sultan of Menangcabow, given by Marsden, that one place on earth may lay claim to the possession of it. “This is the Sultan, who keeps the flower champaka that is blue, and to be found in no other country but his, being yellow elsewhere.”—_Marsden_’s Sumatra.

Footnote 162:

p. 131.—_Flung at night from angel hands._

“The Mahometans suppose that falling stars are the firebrands wherewith the good angels drive away the bad, when they approach too near the empyrean or verge of the heavens.”—_Fryer._

Footnote 163:

p. 132.—_Beneath the pillars of_ CHILMINAR.

The Forty Pillars; so the Persians call the ruins of Persepolis. It is imagined by them that this palace and the edifices at Balbec were built by Genii, for the purpose of hiding in their subterraneous caverns immense treasures, which still remain there.—See _D’Herbelot_ and _Volney._

Footnote 164:

p. 132.—_To the south of sun-bright Araby._—The Isles of Panchaia.

_Diodorus_ mentions the Isle of Panchaia, to the south of Arabia Felix, where there was a temple of Jupiter. This island, or rather cluster of isles, has disappeared, “sunk (says _Grandpré_) in the abyss made by the fire beneath their foundations.”—_Voyage to the Indian Ocean._

Footnote 165:

p. 132.—_The jewell’d cup of their King Jamshid._

“The cup of Jamshid, discovered, they say, when digging for the foundations of Persepolis.”—_Richardson._

Footnote 166:

p. 132.—_O’er coral rocks, and amber beds._

“It is not like the Sea of India, whose bottom is rich with pearls and ambergris, whose mountains of the coast are stored with gold and precious stones, whose gulfs breed creatures that yield ivory, and among the plants of whose shores are ebony, red wood, and the wood of Hairzan, aloes, camphor, cloves, sandal-wood, and all other spices and aromatics: where parrots and peacocks are birds of the forest, and musk and civet are collected upon the lands.”—_Travels of Two Mohammedans._

Footnote 167:

p. 133.—_Thy Pagods and thy pillar’d shades._

... “in the ground The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow About the mother-tree, _a pillar’d shade_, High over-arch’d, and echoing walks between.”—MILTON.

For a particular description and plate of the Banyan-tree, see _Cordiner_’s Ceylon.

Footnote 168:

p. 133.—_Thy Monarchs and their thousand Thrones._

“With this immense treasure Mamood returned to Ghizni, and in the year 400 prepared a magnificent festival, where he displayed to the people his wealth in golden thrones and in other ornaments, in a great plain without the city of Ghizni.”—_Ferishta._

Footnote 169:

p. 133.—_’Tis He of Gazna—fierce in wrath._

“Mahmood of Gazna, or Ghizni, who conquered India in the beginning of the 11th century.”—See his History in _Dow_ and _Sir J. Malcolm_.

Footnote 170:

p. 133.—_Of many a young and lov’d Sultana._

“It is reported that the hunting equipage of the Sultan Mahmood was so magnificent, that he kept 400 greyhounds and bloodhounds, each of which wore a collar set with jewels, and a covering edged with gold and pearls.”—_Universal History_, vol. iii.

Footnote 171:

p. 134.—_For Liberty shed, so holy is._

Objections may be made to my use of the word Liberty in this, and more especially in the story that follows it, as totally inapplicable to any state of things that has ever existed in the East; but though I cannot, of course, mean to employ it in that enlarged and noble sense which is so well understood at the present day, and, I grieve to say, so little acted upon, yet it is no disparagement to the word to apply it to that national independence, that freedom from the interference and dictation of foreigners, without which, indeed, no liberty of any kind can exist; and for which both Hindoos and Persians fought against their Mussulman invaders with, in many cases, a bravery that deserved much better success.

Footnote 172:

p. 136.—_Now among_ AFRIC’S _lunar Mountains._

“The Mountains of the Moon, or the Montes Lunæ of antiquity, at the foot of which the Nile is supposed to rise.”—_Bruce._

“Sometimes called,” says _Jackson_, “Jibbel Kumrie, or the white or lunar-coloured mountains; so a white horse is called by the Arabians a moon-coloured horse.”

Footnote 173:

p. 136.—_And hail the new-born Giant’s smile._

“The Nile, which the Abyssinians know by the names of Abey and Alawy, or the Giant.”—_Asiat. Research._ vol. i. p. 387.

Footnote 174:

p. 136.—_Her grots, and sepulchres of Kings._

See Perry’s View of the Levant for an account of the sepulchres in Upper Thebes, and the numberless grots, covered all over with hieroglyphics in the mountains of Upper Egypt.

Footnote 175:

p. 136.—_In warm_ ROSETTA’S _vale—now loves._

“The orchards of Rosetta are filled with turtle-doves.”—_Sonnini._

Footnote 176:

p. 136.—_The azure calm of_ MŒRIS’ _Lake._

Savary mentions the pelicans upon Lake Mœris.

Footnote 177:

p. 137.—_Warns them to their silken beds._

“The superb date-tree, whose head languidly reclines, like that of a handsome woman overcome with sleep.”—_Dafard el Hadad._

Footnote 178:

p. 137.—_Some purple-wing’d Sultana sitting._

“That beautiful bird, with plumage of the finest shining blue, with purple beak and legs, the natural and living ornament of the temples and palaces of the Greeks and Romans, which, from the stateliness of its port, as well as the brilliancy of its colours, has obtained the title of Sultana.”—_Sonnini._

Footnote 179:

p. 138.—_Only the fierce hyæna stalks._

Jackson, speaking of the plague that occurred in West Barbary, when he was there, says, “The birds of the air fled away from the abodes of men. The hyænas, on the contrary, visited the cemeteries,” &c.

Footnote 180:

p. 138.—_Throughout the city’s desolate walks._

“Gondar was full of hyænas from the time it turned dark till the dawn of day, seeking the different pieces of slaughtered carcasses, which this cruel and unclean people expose in the streets without burial, and who firmly believe that these animals are Falashta from the neighbouring mountains, transformed by magic, and come down to eat human flesh in the dark in safety.”—_Bruce._

Footnote 181:

p. 138.—_The glaring of those large blue eyes._—Bruce.

Footnote 182:

p. 140.—_But see—who yonder comes by stealth._

This circumstance has been often introduced into poetry;—by Vincentius Fabricius, by Darwin, and lately, with very powerful effect, by Mr. Wilson.

Footnote 183:

p. 142.—_Who sings at the last his own death-lay._

“In the East, they suppose the Phœnix to have fifty orifices in his bill, which are continued to his tail; and that, after living one thousand years, he builds himself a funeral pile, sings a melodious air of different harmonies through his fifty organ pipes, flaps his wings with a velocity which sets fire to the wood, and consumes himself.”—_Richardson._

Footnote 184:

p. 144.—_Their first sweet draught of glory take._

“On the shores of a quadrangular lake stand a thousand goblets, made of stars, out of which souls predestined to enjoy felicity drink the crystal wave.”—From _Châteaubriand_’s Description of the Mahometan Paradise, in his _Beauties of Christianity_.

Footnote 185:

p. 145.—_Now, upon_ SYRIA’S _land of roses._

Richardson thinks that Syria had its name from Suri, a beautiful and delicate species of rose, for which that country has been always famous;—hence, Suristan, the Land of Roses.

Footnote 186:

p. 145.—_Gay lizards, glittering on the walls._

“The number of lizards I saw one day in the great court of the Temple of the Sun at Balbec amounted to many thousands; the ground, the walls, and stones of the ruined buildings, were covered with them.”—_Bruce._

Footnote 187:

p. 146.—_Of shepherd’s ancient reed._

“The Syrinx, or Pan’s pipe, is still a pastoral instrument in Syria.”—_Russel._

Footnote 188:

p. 146.—_Of the wild bees of_ PALESTINE.

“Wild bees, frequent in Palestine, in hollow trunks or branches of trees, and the clefts of rocks. Thus it is said (Psalm lxxxi.), ‘_honey out of the stony rock_.’”—_Burder_’s Oriental Customs.

Footnote 189:

p. 146.—_And woods, so full of nightingales._

“The river Jordan is on both sides beset with little, thick, and pleasant woods, among which thousands of nightingales warble all together.”—_Thevenot._

Footnote 190:

p. 146.—_On that great Temple, once his own._

The Temple of the Sun at Balbec.

Footnote 191:

p. 147.—_The beautiful blue damsel flies._

“You behold there a considerable number of a remarkable species of beautiful insects, the elegance of whose appearance and their attire procured for them the name of Damsels.”—_Sonnini._

Footnote 192:

p. 147.—_Of a small imaret’s rustic fount._

Imaret, “hospice où on loge et nourrit, gratis, les pélerins pendant trois jours.”—_Toderini, translated by the Abbé de Cournand._—See also _Castellan_’s Mœurs des Othomans, tom. v. p. 145.

Footnote 193:

p. 149.—_Kneels, with his forehead to the south._

“Such Turks, as at the common hours of prayer are on the road, or so employed as not to find convenience to attend the mosques, are still obliged to execute that duty; nor are they ever known to fail, whatever business they are then about, but pray immediately when the hour alarms them, whatever they are about, in that very place they chance to stand on; insomuch that when a janissary, whom you have to guard you up and down the city, hears the notice which is given him from the steeples, he will turn about, stand still, and beckon with his hand, to tell his charge he must have patience for awhile; when, taking out his handkerchief, he spreads it on the ground, sits cross-legged thereupon, and says his prayers, though in the open market, which, having ended, he leaps briskly up, salutes the person whom he undertook to convey, and renews his journey with the mild expression of _Ghell gohnnum ghell_, or, Come, dear, follow me.”—_Aaron Hill_’s Travels.

Footnote 194:

p. 151.—_Upon_ EGYPT’S _land, of so healing a power._

The Nucta, or Miraculous Drop, which falls in Egypt precisely on St. John’s Day, in June, and is supposed to have the effect of stopping the plague.

Footnote 195:

p. 153.—_Are the diamond turrets of_ SHADUKIAM.

The Country of Delight—the name of a province in the kingdom of Jinnistan, or Fairy Land, the capital of which is called the City of Jewels. Amberabad is another of the cities of Jinnistan.

Footnote 196:

p. 153.—_My feast is now of the Tooba Tree._

The tree Tooba, that stands in Paradise, in the palace of Mahomet. See _Sale’s Prelim. Disc._—Tooba, says _D’Herbelot_, signifies beatitude, or eternal happiness.

Footnote 197:

p. 154.—_To the lote-tree, springing by_ ALLA’S _throne._

Mahomet is described, in the 53d chapter of the Koran, as having seen the Angel Gabriel “by the lote-tree, beyond which there is no passing: near it is the Garden of Eternal Abode.” This tree, say the commentators, stands in the seventh Heaven, on the right hand of the Throne of God.

Footnote 198:

p. 155.—_As the hundred and twenty thousand Streams of Basra._—“It is said that the rivers or streams of Basra were reckoned in the time of Pelal ben Abi Bordeh, and amounted to the number of one hundred and twenty thousand streams.”—_Ebn Haukal._

Footnote 199:

p. 155.—_Who, like them, flung the jereed carelessly._—The name of the javelin with which the Easterns exercise. See _Castellan, Mœurs des Othomans_, tom. iii. p. 161.

Footnote 200: